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What They Said About the Arabs and Arabic

What Arab and Muslim scholars have said about their language, and what scholars from outside the Arab world have said about it, and about the Arabs and their civilisation. Nothing is published until it was read in its author's own book or in a named, reliable witness; the Western sayings appear in their original languages beside a translation, each with a link to the page of the book.

105 sayings — 52 by Arab and Muslim scholars, 53 by others; 48 read in the original language of their author.

How these sayings were documented

Most sayings of Western scholars about Arabic circulate in Arabic translations taken from secondary sources, and many turned out to add to or cut from the original. We went back to the authors' own books, in scans of their pages, and publish the original text with a faithful translation, noting under each saying where the circulated version departs from it. Sayings whose original we have not yet found are not published.

Read in the original Read in its author's own language (French, German, Latin…) in a scan of the book; the original is printed beside any translation. From the author's own Arabic The author's own Arabic words, read in his book by edition, volume and page; the English is our translation. Narrated with its chain The speaker wrote no book of his own; this is read in a work that narrates it from him with its chain of transmission, by edition, volume and page. Via a reliable witness Reported by a named scholar without a chain, or not found in the author's own work.

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Narrated with its chain
Hearing a man speak Persian while circling the Ka‘ba, he took him by the arm and said:
“Seek a way to Arabic.”
ابْتَغِ إِلَى العَرَبِيَّةِ سَبِيلاً
Umar ibn al-Khattab
d. 23 AH / 644 CE
 Narrated with its chain
Reported by his student Harb al-Kirmani, in his chapter on naming the months in Persian:
“I said to Ahmad: The Persians have days and months that they call by names that are not known. He disliked that with the strongest dislike.”
قُلْتُ لِأَحْمَدَ: فَإِنَّ لِلْفُرْسِ أَيَّاماً وَشُهُوراً يُسَمُّونَهَا بِأَسْمَاءٍ لَا تُعْرَفُ؛ فَكَرِهَ ذَلِكَ أَشَدَّ الكَرَاهَة.
Ahmad ibn Hanbal
d. 241 AH / 855 CE
 From the author's own Arabic
“Whoever loves God loves His Messenger Muhammad; whoever loves the Arab Messenger loves the Arabs; whoever loves the Arabs loves Arabic, in which the best of books was sent down to the best of non-Arabs and Arabs; and whoever loves Arabic cares for it, persists in it and devotes his effort to it، Arabic is the best of languages and tongues, and turning to understand it is part of religion, for it is the instrument of knowledge, the key to understanding religion, and a means of setting right this life and the next.”
وَمَنْ أَحَبَّ الرَّسُولَ العَرَبِيَّ أَحَبَّ العَرَبَ، وَمَنْ أَحَبَّ العَرَبَ أَحَبَّ العَرَبِيَّةَ الَّتِي بِها نَزَلَ أَفْضَلُ الكُتُبِ… وَالعَرَبِيَّةُ خَيْرُ اللُّغاتِ وَالأَلْسِنَةِ.
al-Tha'alibi
d. 429 AH / 1038 CE
 From the author's own Arabic
“I praise God for making me one of the scholars of Arabic and for disposing me by nature to zeal and partisanship for the Arabs.”
اللَّهَ أَحْمَدُ عَلَى أَنْ جَعَلَنِي مِنْ عُلَماءِ العَرَبِيَّةِ وَجَبَلَنِي عَلَى الغَضَبِ لِلعَرَبِ وَالعَصَبِيَّةِ
al-Zamakhshari
d. 538 AH / 1144 CE
 From the author's own Arabic
“The Arabic tongue is the emblem of Islam and its people, and languages are among the greatest distinctive marks of nations, by which they are told apart.”
فَإِنَّ اللِّسانَ العَرَبِيَّ شِعارُ الإِسْلامِ وَأَهْلِهِ، وَاللُّغاتُ مِنْ أَعْظَمِ شَعائِرِ الأُمَمِ الَّتِي بِها يَتَمَيَّزُونَ
Ibn Taymiyya
d. 728 AH / 1328 CE
 From the author's own Arabic
“The forebears never ceased to dislike changing the distinctive marks of the Arabs, even in dealings, namely speaking other than Arabic except out of need, as Malik, al-Shafi'i and Ahmad stated; Malik even said: whoever speaks other than Arabic in our mosque is to be put out of it. Other tongues may be spoken by their own people, but they allowed them for need and disliked them otherwise, to preserve the distinctive marks of Islam; for God sent down His Book in the Arabic tongue, sent with it His Arab Prophet, and made the Arab community the best of communities, so that preserving their emblem became part of fully preserving Islam.”
فَإِنَّ اللَّهَ أَنْزَلَ كِتَابَهُ بِاللِّسَانِ الْعَرَبِيِّ، وَبَعَثَ بِهِ نَبِيَّهُ الْعَرَبِيَّ… فَصَارَ حِفْظُ شِعَارِهِمْ مِنْ تَمَامِ حِفْظِ الْإِسْلَامِ.
Ibn Taymiyya
d. 728 AH / 1328 CE
 From the author's own Arabic
“No people's language was ever abased without that people being abased, nor did it decline without their affairs going into decline and retreat.”
وَمَا ذَلَّتْ لُغَةُ شَعْبٍ إِلَّا ذَلَّ، وَلَا انْحَطَّتْ إِلَّا كَانَ أَمْرُهُ فِي ذَهَابٍ وإِدْبَار
Mustafa Sadiq al-Rafi'i
d. 1356 AH / 1937 CE
 From the author's own Arabic
“As for language, it is the image of the nation's existence, with its ideas, its meanings and the realities of its soul, a distinct existence standing on its own characteristics; it is the nationhood of thought.”
أَمَّا اللُّغَةُ فَهْي صُورَةُ وُجُودِ الأمَّةِ بِأَفْكَارِهَا وَمَعَانِيهَا وَحَقَائِقِ نُفُوسِهَا، وُجُوداً مُتَمَيِّزاً قَائِماً بِخَصَائِصِه؛ فَهْيَ قَوْمِيَّةُ الفِكْر
Mustafa Sadiq al-Rafi'i
d. 1356 AH / 1937 CE
 Via a reliable witness
On his years at university:
“I often thought of going on with Ethiopic and going deeper, but Arabic overcame its rival and drew me wholly to itself.”
وَلَطَالَمَا فَكَّرْتُ أَنْ أَمْضِيَ فِيهَا [في الحبشيّة] وَأَتَعَمَّقَ، لَكِنَّ اللُّغَةَ العَرَبِيَّةَ غَلَبَتْ ضَرَّتَهَا وَجَذَبَتْنِي جُمْلَةً إِلَيْهَا.
Ignaty Krachkovsky
1883–1951

Some well-known sayings attributed to Western scholars have not been traced to an original and are not published: one credited to Krachkovsky (we searched the whole of his history of Arabic geographical literature), one credited to Germanus (not in any of his articles in al-Risāla), others credited to Marçais and Berque, and one credited to Brockelmann ("through the Qur’an Arabic reached an extent…"). The saying credited to al-Asma‘i is one he transmits from al-Khalil from Ayyub al-Sakhtiyani, whose saying is in this section. The saying credited to "William Work" has no such author: the name is a corruption of William H. Worrell, director of the American School of Oriental Research in Jerusalem, and its source has not been found. The claim that Chomsky was influenced by Sībawayh was denied by Chomsky himself in two published e-mails.